Anita - Setting

[dan-lian.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking a bit about LKH lately (mostly because I'm looking fora MUX or two to play in, and ran across some Anita Blake ones). I think she had a fantastic setting--it was modern without shooting into the future, it was realistic and intelligently formed, with realistic bias and prejudice. Where did that go? When did it go away?

I think LKH got to the point that she felt people knew enough about her universe, Anita's world, to not need the constant setting material, and then flung us into Anita's sex life. By doing that, I think she forgot a lot of the things she developed and where she went with it, and it's been disappointing.

What are your thoughts on it? Do you like the world, minus Anita's sex life?

Comments

[longtail.livejournal.com]

I really loved the setting, but one thing has always REALLY bugged me, and that's how completely freakin' INEPT the police are on preternatural matters. What the hell are they paying these guys for? They don't freakin' know ANYTHING.

Ok, I get that Anita's the specialist and her coming out to the crime scenes is really important for the plot and it makes for some cool reading. But come on, humans have supposedly lived for their entire species alongside with preternaturals, and lycanthropy and vampirism even seems to pre-date homo sapiens.

And the modern day police of 199? have almost NO systems or procedures or departments or databases or libraries or training developed in place for their officers, detectives, forensics teams, and so on? They have to rely on ONE specialist?

One that has to tell them something so basic that a master wereshifter can pop it's claws without shifting their whole bodies? AND this werewolf still managed to kill two armed *SWAT* team members?

Nope, not buying it. Police DO use specialists, but Anita's job is so bloody simple *I* can do it. To make this more realisitic she'd likely only be called once in a while for raisings, and maybe doing nitty gritty work doing body matchups and helping with zombie interrogation, not spouting off trivia to the police about every preturnatural creature there is.

This isn't going to be washed away with the explanation of "Oh, you could just kill a vamp/were anytime you wanted to before they got laws protecting them." That just doesn't make any sense. Then Anita should never have gotten her job in the first place. There would be no such thing as a dedicated "vampire executioner." The police would just do it themselves.

So yeah, I can ramble on, but that's my thoughts.